Iraq's Kurdish leader warns Kerry of challenges

Associated Press

Published 6:35 pm, Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Photo: Ahmed Al-Husseini, Associated Press

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Members of an Iraqi volunteer force put on their newly issued boots in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, June 24, 2014. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has put on hold plans for a counteroffensive to retake Iraqi cities captured by Sunni insurgents in the north and west of the country, instead deploying elite forces in Baghdad to bolster its defenses, Iraqi officials tell the AP. Shiite militias who have responded to a cleric's call to arms also are focusing their efforts on protecting the capital and other Shiite shrines, while Kurdish fighters have grabbed a long-coveted oil rich city outside their self-ruled territory in the name of defending it from the al-Qaida breakaway group leading Sunni extremists in their advance. With each sect focused on self-interests, the situation on the ground is increasingly looking like the fractured state the Americans have hoped to avoid. "We are facing a new reality and a new Iraq," the top Kurdish leader says.(AP Photo/Ahmed al-Husseini) less

Members of an Iraqi volunteer force put on their newly issued boots in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, June 24, 2014. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... more

Photo: Ahmed Al-Husseini, Associated Press

Iraq's Kurdish leader warns Kerry of challenges

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Irbil, Iraq --

Iraq's top Kurdish leader warned visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday that a rapid Sunni insurgent advance has already created "a new reality and a new Iraq," signaling that the U.S. faces major difficulties in its efforts to promote unity among the country's divided factions.

The U.N., meanwhile, said more than 1,000 people, most civilians, have been killed in Iraq so far this month, the highest death toll since the U.S. military withdrew from the country in December 2011.

Massoud Barzani, whose powerful minority bloc has long functioned as kingmaker in Iraqi politics, did not directly mention Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is facing the strongest challenge to his rule since he assumed power in 2006. But al-Maliki has made little effort beyond rhetoric to win the trust of his critics, who are led by disaffected Sunnis, Kurds and even several former Shiite allies.

Instead, the Kurds have deployed their own well-trained security forces known as peshmerga and seized long-coveted ground of their own in the name of defending it from the al Qaeda breakaway group and other Sunni insurgents who have swept through the north. The Kurds are unlikely to give up that territory, including the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, regardless of the status of the fighting.

Al-Maliki, meanwhile, has been entirely focused on the security situation, spending hours each day in the main military command center, rather than politics, officials close to his inner circle say, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release such details. Despite the attention, Iraq's mainly Shiite security forces have failed to wage any successful counteroffensives against the insurgents.

A weeklong fight for control of Iraq's largest oil refinery continued Tuesday with helicopter gunships attacking what appeared to be formations of Sunni militants preparing for another assault on the facility in Beiji, a top military official said.

Chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi has denied reports that the facility has fallen to the rebels.

Government air forces also reportedly bombed the town of Qaim near the Syrian border on Tuesday, days after it was seized by Islamic extremists in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. Provincial government spokesman Dhari al-Rishawi said 17 civilians were killed.

Kerry traveled to Irbil, the capital of the self-ruled Kurdish region on Tuesday, a day after meeting with al-Maliki and other Iraqi officials in Baghdad, where he pushed for them to adopt new policies that would give more authority to Iraq's minority Sunnis and Kurds.

Kerry said after the Baghdad meetings that all the leaders agreed to start the process of seating a new parliament by July 1, which will advance a constitutionally required timetable for naming a president, prime minister and a new Cabinet. Al-Maliki's political bloc won the most seats in parliamentary elections in April but must assemble a majority coalition in the legislature in order to secure a third term for the Shiite leader.

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